A Soviet officers coup, Stalin's worst fears realized?

Why would it have to happen prior to WW2? During the war it would be unlikely to happen. However once Berlin falls and Japan surrenders there could be some Field Marshals and Generals who knowing Stalin's history figure they've got nothing to loose. Military coup happens in the Autumn of 1945.

I understand this would be much eaiser to pull off, Zhukov would be a nice choice, but I think a pre WW2 coup is a somewhat original idea that I haven't seen pulled off. Thus the challenge is a pre WW 2 coup against Stalin, although I agree that its a difficult task, Wolf brings up an excellent point in regards to party loyalty. It seems as if the very structure of the early Soviet Union would have to be changed to get things to work, perhaps an even earlier POD? All ideas are appreciated :)
 
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This is.a bit of a romantic simplification, but most communist movements are split btw utopian idealist types who want to build a perfect avant guard egalitarian world and the practical types who just want to hang a few capitalists and get the workers (as in their buddies) to power. In the USSR Stalin was the leader of the down to earth side, and that split was apparent in the Red Army, with Tukhachevsky and his fellow staff officers who planned an avant garde mechanised army being purged while pratical "my horse never breaks down" types prospered. Notice how the idealist avant gard painters were brushed off in favor of boringly reliable realistic painters, how the intellectual boldness of the early years was removed.
We could have the idealist side stronger and more active inside the party, and let them have a few followers inside the NKVD. the USSR would be split btw conservative communists, lined behind Stalin, and progressive communists, lined up behind Tukhachevsky. Stalin would plan a purge, but progressive insiders would warn their faction and the progressives would stage a coup. OTL the progressives (and this term does not mean they were any less communist) were isolated because the party was totally dominated by conservatives, and inside the Army they had no control over the "bases"
Plausible, maybe not, but a "progressive communist" USSR were Anna Akhmatova would be dining with Tukhachevsky at a state dinner before the premiere of Eisenstein's movie of Mikail Bulgakhov's "the master and margarita"while giant Tupolev airliners overflow the Kremlin makes for great reading
 
This is.a bit of a romantic simplification, but most communist movements are split btw utopian idealist types who want to build a perfect avant guard egalitarian world and the practical types who just want to hang a few capitalists and get the workers (as in their buddies) to power. In the USSR Stalin was the leader of the down to earth side, and that split was apparent in the Red Army, with Tukhachevsky and his fellow staff officers who planned an avant garde mechanised army being purged while pratical "my horse never breaks down" types prospered. Notice how the idealist avant gard painters were brushed off in favor of boringly reliable realistic painters, how the intellectual boldness of the early years was removed.
We could have the idealist side stronger and more active inside the party, and let them have a few followers inside the NKVD. the USSR would be split btw conservative communists, lined behind Stalin, and progressive communists, lined up behind Tukhachevsky. Stalin would plan a purge, but progressive insiders would warn their faction and the progressives would stage a coup. OTL the progressives (and this term does not mean they were any less communist) were isolated because the party was totally dominated by conservatives, and inside the Army they had no control over the "bases"
Plausible, maybe not, but a "progressive communist" USSR were Anna Akhmatova would be dining with Tukhachevsky at a state dinner before the premiere of Eisenstein's movie of Mikail Bulgakhov's "the master and margarita"while giant Tupolev airliners overflow the Kremlin makes for great reading

I really like what you've come up with here, and a progressive Tukhachevsky and co. is definitely an interesting scenario I haven't considered. Not only do we get a military run USSR and its implication for war but we also get the implication of a sort of enlightened Soviet society, we might see Not by Bread Alone a few decades early. Is it plausible, well its all about how things unfold. As long as the progressive Tukhachevsky faction has a realistic rise to power, I pretty much have artistic license from there. After all its anyone's guess how a egalitarian USSR would have unfolded. However the sticking point in all of this is what exactly would the POD have to be? Stalin could have a rockier rise to power perhaps, any ideas?
 
Zhukov might, might have been able to get the numbers together for a coup post war, but only if there were enough senior men who thought it was more of a risk to stay loyal to Stalin.

Hmm. Let's say that Stalin gets ill slowly ITL, so the men at the top can see there will be a successor in the next six months to a year.

The senior members of the politburo- Molotov, Malenkov, Khrushchev et al begin jockeying for power, but there's the spectre of Beria and the NKVD.

The generals begin to worry of another major purge following the succession, so they decide to move quickly to "eliminate the vultures" who are preying upon poor, sick Comrade Stalin.

I dunno, that's pretty specious but hey.
 
Zhukov might, might have been able to get the numbers together for a coup post war, but only if there were enough senior men who thought it was more of a risk to stay loyal to Stalin.

Hmm. Let's say that Stalin gets ill slowly ITL, so the men at the top can see there will be a successor in the next six months to a year.

The senior members of the politburo- Molotov, Malenkov, Khrushchev et al begin jockeying for power, but there's the spectre of Beria and the NKVD.

The generals begin to worry of another major purge following the succession, so they decide to move quickly to "eliminate the vultures" who are preying upon poor, sick Comrade Stalin.

I dunno, that's pretty specious but hey.

I would prefer to keep the coup before WW2 if thats possible, could your suggested scenario work a decade or two earlier? After all it shouldn't be to hard to craft a POD that ends up with a Stalin in declining health in the 20's / 30's. Also lets not rule out the possibility of Stalin dying early and a coup being successfully pulled off on his successor.
 
Possibly if the Kirov/Stalin rivalry spiraled into something nastier so that the Party leadership was fractured...

Still difficult. I think you'd need at least one senior figure in the Politburo to invite whoever the Marshal is to restore order in the name of the people and the party.

And there'd have to be some way to neutralise the Lubyanka; unless some deputy of Yershov or Beria was invited on board?


It's too tenuous, I think. The politics of the era were just too paranoid; people were so nervous about plots and being suspected of plotting that they tried to stay clear of anyone who looked like they had a dangerous idea.
 
Why not an Assasination?

Coups are hard in well organized totalitarian states. However you might get some of the NKVD to turn a blind eye to a lone wolf assassination, if they thought they were next in some purge. So suppose sometime before Stalin guts Yezhov the NKVD gets wind of it an lets a lone assassin slip in. No time to plan or organize a coup, just let the madman in with a gun or bomb and hope for the best. It has been suggested that Himmler did something similar with some of the later anti-Hitler coups, so why not Yezhov?
 
Coups are hard in well organized totalitarian states. However you might get some of the NKVD to turn a blind eye to a lone wolf assassination, if they thought they were next in some purge. So suppose sometime before Stalin guts Yezhov the NKVD gets wind of it an lets a lone assassin slip in. No time to plan or organize a coup, just let the madman in with a gun or bomb and hope for the best. It has been suggested that Himmler did something similar with some of the later anti-Hitler coups, so why not Yezhov?

Beria claimed he killed Stalin in 1953 OTL by slipping him warfarinm, apparently Stalin was gearing up for another purge of high ranking officials and Bernia feared for his life. So its plausible enough, and given the confusion that usually follows the death of Soviet Leaders the military could slip into control. So such a situation happening earlier could be plausable, all we need to do is give Yezhov a motive to carry it out.
 
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